OIT Connections FY19 Q1 - August 2018

July marks a major milestone for the Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT)! Ten years ago the responsibility for executive branch IT was consolidated under OIT. Since then OIT has been dedicated to serving people serving Colorado by keeping state systems running, partnering with agencies to modernize systems, and continuously looking for ways to innovate.

Below are just a few of the IT improvements made by OIT since its inception in 2008:

2008

2018

Email Systems

15

1

Service Desks

16

1

Data Centers

40

20

Efforts such as these, as well as activities like creating enterprise agreements, have generated cost savings/cost avoidance of more than $68.1 million since 2010.

I am honored to be your secretary of technology and state chief information officer to lead the OIT team as they begin a second decade of serving all of you!

Suma NallapatiSecretary of Technology & CIO

Tales from the CDOT Cyber Incident

Five months after the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) was hit with ransomware, State Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Debbi Blyth says the lessons learned have made the state’s cybersecurity controls even stronger and bolstered our ability to safeguard systems. In this video, Debbi and OIT’s Chief Technology Officer David McCurdy explain how having a state cybersecurity strategy, combined with a quick implementation procedure, limited the damage from the cyberattack. VIEW VIDEO

Meet OIT’s New Accessibility Solutions Architect

It’s part of our mission at OIT to serve people who serve Colorado with technology solutions that enable them to achieve their business needs, and those technology solutions need to be usable by all executive branch employees. That’s why OIT hired its first-ever Accessibility Solutions Architect. Theresa Montano is charged with ensuring digital inclusion for all people who need to access the websites, applications, forms, documents and other information provided by the State of Colorado. Some ways Theresa is already making an impact include:

Working with the state’s user experience manager to integrate diversity inclusion into all applications

Working with developers on mobile applications to ensure accessibility on Android and IOS applications

Having the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) that are developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approved as a standard for the State of Colorado

Theresa is currently working on developing WCAG training. We’ll let you know as soon as it is available. We’re excited that Theresa is helping improve our digital solutions by getting involved in the project process from the start.

Blockchain for Better Government

If you’re familiar with blockchain, you may know it as the technology behind the digital currency Bitcoin. As part of a law passed this spring, state agencies have now been directed to consider ways to use blockchain and the Governor has appointed a 12-person Council for the Advance of Blockchain Technology that will make recommendations for blockchain use.

Blockchain is defined as a decentralized, distributed and public digital ledger. What does that mean and how will it be used at the state? Secretary of Technology and State Chief Information Officer Suma Nallapati says blockchain will help us to incorporate transparency while ensuring data security, and its near real-time capabilities will make it faster for transactions to be verified and completed.

There’s much more to blockchain than Bitcoin and OIT is excited to explore how we can help put it to use at your agency.

Get The Most From Your Google Tools

Thanks to everyone who filled out the form earlier in the year letting us know what type of Google training you would be interested in!Based on your input, OIT’s Google Program Administrator Jessica Greene has put together some live webinar learning opportunities for you to explore new ways of utilizing G Suite. These live webinars will occur once a month starting in August. The topics and sign-up forms are listed on the TechU Announcements page. In case you are not able to make it in person, we plan on recording the trainings and posting them on TechU.